Amid the Republican Party’s broad effort to hamstring voting by mail, the chair of an independent federal election commission said he believes states should no longer accept and count ballots after Election Day — a change that would lead to numerous ballots being rejected in multiple states.
“There should be a deadline for absentee or mail ballots prior to Election Day and then they should be returned by Election Day,” Donald Palmer, the chair of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC), said in a House hearing Tuesday on California’s ballot counting process.
Palmer’s comments come after President Donald Trump has repeatedly called on states to no longer accept and count ballots that arrive after Election Day, and signed an executive order last month directing the EAC to withhold federal funding from states that continue to do so.
Mississippi is currently set to ask the Supreme Court to weigh in on whether states accepting late-arriving ballots are unconstitutional. If the court takes the case, which was brought by the Republican National Committee, its decision could have far-reaching implications for mail voting.
In his written testimony to the Committee on House Administration, Palmer specified that the statements were his personal opinion….